The applicant has designed a six channel pagewidth printhead. In a typical application, the 6 channels will be used to print CMYK plus a fixative and infrared ink. One or more channels can be replaced with another color or substance as required, as long as the printer controller used to feed data to the printhead can cope with the difference.
One way of enabling more flexible channel allocation is to provide a cartridge having a different number of channels. A typical approach in prior art printers has been to provide the printhead on a cartridge, such that the cartridge itself can be replaced to change the number of channels or type of ink being used in each channel. One example of this is where a monochrome cartridge can be swapped for a color cartridge. Aside from the hassle of physically changing cartridges, it is also commercially undesirable to have multiple physical printhead types to account for the varying number of channels required in various applications.
It would be desirable to provide a multi-channel printhead that offers more flexibility in allocating channels than is presently the case in earlier printheads.